You ever hear a song and think to yourself, wait a minute, that sounds like a beat I’ve heard before? That’s how Philly native Tre Prada started his afternoon.

Here are his thoughts on the new Cardi B song “Up” which dropped at midnight on Friday morning.

When you listen to it his song “Goonies”, a song that dropped back in October of 2020, the notes and the beat seem to be remarkably similar. We’re gonna drop the videos here. In this case, hearing is believing.

Now let’s compare that to Cardi B’s brand new, 13 hours old video.

We want to know what you think about this. Do you hear a similar beat? Do you think the songs are different enough? Do they sound like any other songs you know? Let us know on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram what you hear and what you think about this situation. We’re here to talk about it and other issues in the music industry.

by Tiffany Livingston

Our culture is saturated in pure soul and through our music; we sing and perform songs of the Gospel, rhythm and blues, rock, funk, conscious lyrical hip-hop, and rap music. Growing up in the 90’s was a black liberating era listening to artists such as, Arrested Development, KRS-One, Tupac, and too many great black music artists to name. I took pride in being black only because the songs resonated with me. I started to become conscious of my blackness and for the first time in my life, I began to see racism and the mistreatment of my people for what it was because the music provoked me to open my eyes (Woke). I was becoming of age at the perfect time, becoming aware, strong-minded and took pride in celebrating my blackness through music.

Growing up, music always played in the house. Sounds ranged from Gospel to Funk, Soul, R&B and the ever so infamous Hip-Hop. We would do our chores Saturday morning and cook dinner, dancing and singing along to music. The famous words my Father used to say to me (and he still does till this day) were “Who’s that Singing?” My job was to not guess, but know who it was especially since they were black artists. Arrested Development released a song called Tennessee. It was 1992 and I was about 9 years old. I was probably wearing pattern vests, silk/polyester shirts, and patent leather shoes (LOL). The song wasn’t too far from my first intro to music “Gospel”. Front man MC Speech rapped about black awareness and asked God for his direction during a troubling time; A prayer in the form of song over a hip-hop beat. It felt good to be black. I felt the love through the music, movies and the books I read. Self-love, reflection, and bold expressions is what black music is for me.

The following year in the late Fall of 1993 music began to take a turn into political hip-hop when KRS-One’s controversial single Black Cop was released. The track “Black Cop” was a song that challenged the thoughts of black men who willfully joined and accepted position as a police officer. Why would a black man want to become apart of a system whose goal has always been to kill, taunt, and destroy urban communities as a people? Black slave turned black cop is not logical– KRS-One. Police Brutality has been an on-going issue for centuries, not decades. He was just shedding light on the issue and he rapped about it. My people, like many others, have had too long of a journey fighting just to live. Sadly! This song is so fresh and prevalent in 2020 (Victim Name Here) and it’s shameful, scary and makes us feel unsafe. We are not a scared people and we fight back. We fight through our music and we fight through our voices to fight injustice and systemic racism. I could go on and on, but my goal is to celebrate Black Music. KRS didn’t stop there. He ended the Return of the Boom Bap  (1993) album with the single, Sound of the Police. It was my freshman year in High School in 1996  KRS-One released another challenge, but it was for music artists with Step Into a World. “Yo, I’m strictly about skills, and dope lyrical coastin’ relying on talent, not marketing and promotion”.(Step into A World) – KRS-One

Before J. Cole’s Change and Kendrick Lamar’s Alright there was another conscious/Hip-hop artist on TV named Tupac Shakur (2pac). I remember watching The Box music video channel and Urban Xpressions (Philadelphia TV) show waiting for my favorite artist’s videos to come on. It was the highlight of the weekend and something to talk about Monday morning at school. If you know of Tupac you may have been told only about his “Gangster Rapper” persona from his time with Death Row Records, but I know him as a Poet, Expressionist, Actor and Activist. While making music, Tupac was gaining film credits in a few fan favorites, Juice and Poetic Justice. During this time he continued to make music and in 1993 Tupac showed the Sista’s some love with his  Keep Ya Head Up  single featuring Dave Hollister from (Blackstreet):

“Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice I say the darker the flesh then the deeper the roots I give a holla to my sisters on welfare Tupac cares, if don’t nobody else care.” -Tupac (Keep Ya Head Up).

He continued his love for black women with another song Dear Momma a tribute to his own Mother/Activist the late Afeni Shakur. On September 13, 1996 Tupac Shakur was assassinated. The hip-hop community lost not one, but two great artist and not even a full year later on March 9, 1997 The Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie) was also assassinated. I know a lot of folks question the word assassination when it comes to a “Rapper” as they would say, but they were more than that.

Both deaths affected the black community and as a teenager at that time I was angry, we were angry. We hate violence in our communities as well as racist cops (not every cop) killing black men and women, which has been going on for far too long. The music Tupac made was for his people and the gangsters too. One of my all-time favorites is the song Changes recorded in (1992), then later released in 1998 added to his Greatest Hits Album 1998 . He spoke on black-on-black crime, police brutality, and ways to heal the black community:

“And the only time we chill is when we kill each other It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other. And although it seems heaven-sent, we ain’t ready to see a black president”. – Tupac (Changes).

Little did he know 13 years after his death a black man from Chicago named Barack Obama became America’s President in 2009. I wish he was still alive to see that some things do eventually change, and some stay the same. Most of the time us black folks know that, “that’s just the way it is things will never be the same”. (Changes)

Beast Mode, shot by Philly Music Videos, highlights the brutality experienced by African Americans during this time of Quarantine. Featuring Marcus G and Xin, these artist go all out to address what’s occurring in minority communities throughout the states.